


Let's Start From Here

by Siriusfanatic



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Amnesia, Billford - Freeform, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mystery Trio, Past Relationship(s), Semi Plantonic Fiddlestanwich?, fiddlestan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-04-30 22:22:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5181839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siriusfanatic/pseuds/Siriusfanatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of "Society of the Blind Eye", Stan goes looking for some answers of his own and finds a part of his past that he didn't even know he was missing. </p><p>       Mystery Trio inspired AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

                It was pouring outside; the rain creating a relentless drumming noise on the old tin roof that covered the back porch of the Shack, creating a comforting white noise that had lulled the tired man to sleep, despite being on his third cup of coffee.

                It wasn’t until he heard the squelch of mud and gravel beneath tires and saw the bright sweep of headlights that he was shaken from his slumber, lifting his head with a groan from its fallen place across the back of the chair and feeling his neck twinge as result. He heard muffled voices outside and nodded to himself, hoisting himself up out of the comfort of his worn arm chair as he heard the door open.

                The kids were finally back home. Stan had been trying to stay up, never knowing what kind of trouble they could be getting into out there on their own. Lately it seemed like they went out of their way to go looking for it. He prayed that tonight would be different; that there would be no emergency, no new discovery of something weird, ancient and terrifying. That they were both out just being _kids_ and doing whatever it was kids did these days, without the drama of the journal or any other supernatural shenanigans.

                Stan knew he was hoping for a lot. He could trust Mable to find ample distractions; she had a slew of friends around town, several crushes and other hobbies. But Dipper lived and breathed that journal and its mysteries…kind of like someone else he used to know.

                He caught the two as they were sneaking towards the steps, and he noticed immediately that they seemed ruffled, mussed, as if they had been in some sort of scrap.

                “Hey!” he barked, sounding more harsh than he meant. The twins cringed and turned towards him, and he could see that both were bruised, even scraped. Stan moved closer, eyes widening, then narrowing.

                “And just what have you two been up to? You have any idea what time it is?”

                “Aw Grunkle Stan, it’s summer!” Mable laughed, though the smile was more forced than usual and she seemed nervous. “Bedtime is far more subjective these days, don’t you think?”

                “Yeah, besides, you’ve never cared about us being out late before.” Dipper added, and Stan noted the way he was clinging to his backpack.

                Stan sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly, “Kid, ya got a lot to learn about concealing evidence,” he replied, snatching the backpack from Dipper’s hand, causing the twelve-year old to gasp before trying to pry it free from his palm.

                “Hey! You can’t just--!”

                Stan ignored him, opening the flap and sifting through the contents. All of Dipper’s usual affects were in place; the journal, pens and notebooks, a first aid kit, a camera and some snack bars. But there was something new, tucked hurriedly beneath the clutter of the other items. Stan plucked it out, admiring in the dingy yellow light of the hallway lamp. It appeared to be an odd cylindrical glass tube, with bright brass bearings on either end that came to an odd point. Stan blinked in confusion at the strange item, which seemed harmless yet so out of place that it couldn’t help but concern him.

                “Careful with that!” Dipper yelped nervously, gripping the edges of his hat as he sometimes did when he was anxious and in distress. Stan’s brown eyes flickered to his tense expression for a moment before catching something else about the tube in his hand. He turned the glass over and realized it had a label on it. A label with his name.

                “What is this?” he demanded, and not in the normal, gruffly irritated way he usually did, but with the firm, deadly seriousness that the twins had come know him to use in grave moments.

                “It’s, uh….” Mable cringed, looking at her brother, hands knotting up inside the baggy sleeves of her sweater. “It’s a birthday present! Yeah! We were gonna surprise you and make you, um, uh—“ she was fidgeting, trying to think on her feet, “a terrarium! Yeah! Dipper and I were gonna make you a terrarium inside that tube. You know, maybe make it look like a miniature version of the Shack and the woods! Neat huh?”

                Dipper stared, his skin a little too shiny with a fresh coat of sweat, but he nodded, saying nothing. Stan exhaled slowly through his nose, looking at his niece. She was good, that lie was almost believable. She continued grinning up at him with what she hoped was sweetness and innocence, waiting to see how he would react.

                “Well,” he grunted, smirking a little himself. “If it’s for my birthday, then I’ll just keep it as it is.” He tucked it under his arm, watching both children pale slightly. “Thanks for the thought, kiddos. But it’s still past bedtime. Upstairs, both of you.”

                “But…but Grunkle Stan, it’s not finished! Just let us—“

                “It has my name on it, so that makes it mine.”

                “What?” Dipper snapped, “No it doesn’t!”

                Mable elbowed him in the gut. “What he _means_ is, we just want to make it perfect for you. So why don’t I just take this back and—“

                Stan tugged it out of her grasping fingers, holding the tube above her head. “You can have it back. When you come clean about what it is.”

                The twins laughed nervously. “Come clean? Wh-what do you--?” the boy stammered.

Stan folded his arms, looking down at him with an impatient frown. “Never try to cheat a cheater, kid. Rule number one. So…wanna try this again from the top? Or do I need to ground the two of you on top of everything else?”

Dipper glared at the floor, hands in his pockets. “You won’t believe me.”

Stan raised a thick grey brow. “Try me.”

                The twins looked at each other and then took a collective deep breath. “The thing is, we discovered this weird secret society that had been kidnapping people from town. They were taking them to some creepy underground hideout inside the museum, and were using this weird gun…” Dipper dug further into his bag and produced the weapon in question. Stan continued to look on skeptically, but he tensed visibly. “…to erase people’s memories about the weird things they had seen around town. They’ve been doing it for years.”

                “The whole thing started with Old Man McGucket!” Mable pipped up then, “He made the machine and used it on himself. He used it so many times that…it sorta scrambled his brains.” She rubbed her arm beneath the heavy fold of her sweater. “Poor guy.”

                “The tube you have contains memories. Your memories. Nearly everyone in town had at least one tube, some had dozens. We found an entire crateful of ones from Gideon’s family, and Robby and the police—“

                “That’s enough, kids.”

                They blinked nervously. Stan didn’t seem angry, but he didn’t seem impressed either. “Go on up to bed, both of you.”

                “But Grunkle Stan!” Mable exclaimed, “Please you gotta believe us!”

                “ _Bed._ ” Stan countered, pointing at the stairs this time. Dipper glowered as his sister looked on hopelessly.

                “I knew you wouldn’t believe us.” He muttered.

                Stan said nothing as they passed, making towards the staircase that lead up to their attic bedroom. Dipper hit the third step at a stomp, then a run and dashed ahead and Mable heard him slam the door behind him. She paused midway and looked back at Stan, who remained at the bottom of the steps.

                “Are we grounded?”

                The old man shook his head, “Naw, sweetie. Just go to bed.”

                He waited until her footsteps fade away, and heard the hushed mutters of their whispered conversation from the muffled place above his head, interrupted by Dipper’s loud sniffles or faint hiccuping.

                He picked up the gun, which was still protruding from Dipper’s discarded backpack on the floor, and marched into the kitchen, where he discarded it and the tube upon the kitchen table before making his way over to the window and staring out at the curtain of rain that rushed from the gutter outside.

                Something had turned cold and sour inside him. He rubbed his arms as if sudden chill had taken him and glared into the darkness. Things were getting worse and worse; the journal was starting to lead Dipper to more and more dangerous discoveries in the town. What had begun as inconsequential mischief was turning into something far more troubling.

                It wasn’t enough his damn brother’s book had allowed the boy to summon the dead, or bring all manner of weird creatures out from the hiding places. Now it was leading him into the underbelly of the town, even deeper into its secrets. How long before he started discovering Stan’s?

                He sunk his teeth into his lower lip and sucked in a worried breath. He’d been thinking about coming clean with them, more seriously than he ever expected. They were good kids, _smart_ kids. They deserved to know the truth. But that didn’t mean they could handle it.

                He glanced back over his shoulder at the gun and the strange tube that were lying on the table under the bright gleam of the overhead lamp. “I should send them home. Right now. Before this gets any worse.”

                The old man eyed the tube with his name, his thoughts rolling over like the ocean in a storm. A secret society that was stealing memories…keeping the town’s weirdness under wraps…

                There was a strange familiarity to this all together sinister scenario. He had no reason at all to question it in fact; of course someone was trying to keep the supernatural elements of the town from being found out by the outside world. It made perfect sense. Stan had simply never questioned it before because it had suited his purposes and his own secrets.

                Or was there something else that made him overlook such an obvious conspiracy?

                He couldn’t recall.

                A noise then, not caused by the rain, startled him and made him whip in the direction of the hall. It was a metallic sound, like cans clanging together or tipping off a shelf. Something was rustling through the trash outside. Probably a raccoon…

                Which reminded him of something.

 

**

 

                Fifteen minutes later, Stan arrived at the dump. It was still raining hard, lightning flashed over head now and again, forking across the tops of the high pines and lighting up the mountains of junked cars, tires, scrap metal and other monoliths of discarded scrap.

                He picked the large lock on the front gates and moved through the rows of trash until he came to the ramshackle shanty of Old Man McGucket. The rain was making a deafening noise against the tin roof of the shanty, enough to make Stan wonder how McGucket ever slept during storms like these. But he wasn’t even sure the old hermit was even still inside. Maybe he’d found someplace warmer and dryer to stay the night. After all he did have a son who lived in town, and Tate might be a bit of an ass, but surely he wouldn’t let his own father risk pneumonia and worse…?

                Stan shook off the thought as it started to stir up a sleeping lurking pain in the back of his own mind, and squared his shoulders, jaw set hard as he moved towards the entrance of the make-shift homestead.

                “McGucket!” he shouted, banging his fist on the metal plated door. “Come out here, ya dawn fool! I’ve got a bone to pick with you!”

                Stan could hear nothing but the rain, and flinched when a particularly loud thunderclap made the junk around him shudder faintly. He turned to bang on the door again, “McGuck--!”

                The wily old man appeared then, looking wide eyed and nervous, holding a double barreled shot gun, which was pointed squarely at Stan’s chest. “Wh-Who goes there?! Whatd’ya want?!” he muttered, voice quavering more than usual, cracked and nervous and tight.

                Stan noticed the man was bruised, flustered, yet somehow slightly more composed than he usually was. He was wearing a worn button down shirt along with his usual trousers, suspender straps dangling at his sides, as though he’d made an effort to actually dress himself. Something the vagrant wasn’t always known for.

                Stan shoved the barrel away from him, keeping his grip on it as he pointed it to the ground between his feet, frowning at the old man. “I wouldn’t go pointin’ one of those at me if I were you, old man. You’re hands shake too much to get a clean shot, and I wouldn’t give ya a chance to reload.”

                “Whatd’ya want! I ain’t done nothing!” the hillbilly barked, trying to sound more fierce than he felt. He squinted at the unwanted visitor behind smudged and cracked glasses, which also seemed a new edition. “Unless…you’re one of them.”

                “One of who?”

                McGucket managed to shake Stan off his gun and cocked it, thrusting the barrels into Stan’s stomach and knocking him back from the threshold of his home. “How bout it huh? ‘Mr. Mystery?’ You come to finish what your little pals at the museum started? Well yer outta luck! The memory ray is gone, and even if you had it, it wouldn’t work on my poor broken cranium anywho! So why don’t you just back up and—“

“I ain’t part of any cult, ya nutcase!” Stan barked. “I came here to warn ya to stay away from my kids!”

“I…huh?”

Both were drenched now, soaked through their clothes, wet grey hair shining faintly silver in the dim dingy light from the scattered street lamps.

Dipper and Mable, my niece and nephew. You stay away from them, you understand? You keep your conspiracies and your weirdness away from them! They’re just kids, they don’t know the difference between trouble and _big_ trouble. You get me?”

The leaner man bristled, “You just come to hassle me, just want someone ta blame, like all the others!”

Stan shook his head firmly, “You and I ain’t never had a problem before, McGucket. I know ya can’t help the way ya are…it’s not your fault, you’re sick or something. Hell, I feel sorry for ya! But if you’re starting trouble around here, I can’t have you dragging Dipper and Mable into it!”

McGucket stared at him, small, bowed and bent, looking wild and yet fragile at once. “I don’t know what you mean… _they_ came to _me_!”

“Of course they did.” Stan muttered, more to himself than to the other man. Of course, it made sense. McGucket was all the time spouting off nonsense about this and that, not caring who heard because everyone had learned to ignore him. Everyone but the twins it seemed.

“Look, I never wanted to put those kids in any danger…they’re sweet to me, not like the other kids in this town. Your boy seemed to think I had answers for him, about that journal he carries around…”

Pines looked at him a little more closely, eyes narrowing behind the misty sheen of his glasses. “What do you know about that journal?” he asked, more softly and suspiciously than before.

Here the bearded man’s face crumpled faintly and he looked about to break. He took a hand away from his weapon and clapped it to his head in an anguished manner. “I…it’s still all broken, all scattered up into little pieces…so many holes, things that got lost. But I feel it starting to come back now, a little at a time. I thought it was just dreams before or me being confused. But it ain’t. It’s real. Dipper thought I wrote those journals, but, I only helped the man who did…”

Stan’s balled fists dropped and he seemed winded. ”You…you worked with the Author?”

The bearded man nodded dimly, still rubbing his head. He glanced back at Stan then, “Yes…I mean…I suppose…it’s all fuzzy, out of focus. But I remember a face. A face that looks…an awful lot like _your_ face.”

McGucket let out a little hiccuping sob and covered his mouth with his free hand, shaking his head. “Stanley… _Stanley_.” The hermit looked like he’d seen a ghost, and he must have been crying for his eyes were red-rimmed, but the rain disguised the tears. “Not Stanford. _Stanley_. All these years…I-I--“

He forgot to breathe.

No one had called him that name, _his_ name in thirty years. He took a step towards McGucket, who only retreated equally. “How did you know--?”he began, but all the water had fogged up his glasses, making it impossible for him to see McGucket clearly. The old man was becoming little more than a watery blob in front of his eyes. He growled and wiped the water from his face, taking off his glasses in an attempt to clean them.

It was a mistake. He felt McGucket pull back the gun and heard the sudden whoosh of air as he swung the barrel, but it was too late. The metal cracked him across the face, making him see a bright burst of white, then red, then black as he tumbled over into the mud, knocked cold.  


Above him, the bearded man quickly discarded his weapon and moved to look Stan over. He whimpered and whined nervously when he saw that he had opened a wide gash across the man’s head that rant through his eyebrow and up into his hairline in a bright red streak that was already swelling up. “Stanley! I-I didn’t mean ta…!” he rasped, looking around in the dark. It hadn’t been his intention to hurt the other man, just to stun him, to buy himself some time.

But there seemed to be little for it now. He got his hands under Stan’s arms and began to pull him, dragging him through the mud back towards the entrance of the dump, where he saw the man’s car sitting at the curb, lights still on, engine still running.

               Fiddleford managed to yank open the backdoor and sling the unconscious man inside, letting him flop across the back seat, sloshing dirty water everywhere. The hermit then scrambled into the front seat and nervously gripped the wheel, exhaling shakily. “Alright, alright…easy there Fiddleford…you can handle this.” He assured himself, glancing nervously back at the unconscious man in his rear view mirror.

                “Oh Stan…I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t remember it all…but I just know I done somethin’ awful…” he frowned and put El Diablo into drive, pulling out into the dark road. “Now I gotta find some way of keepin’ history from repeatin’ itself again.”

 

***


	2. Chapter 2

 

***

                The El Diablo rolled up along the dirt road that lead to the Shack and skittered onto the lawn, making deep squelching sounds as its tires sunk in the mud. McGucket kicked open the door with his bare feet and scurried around to the back to remove Stan, who was still firmly unconscious. The white-haired man whimpered and whined like a nervous dog when he saw the bloody welt on Stan’s face, and how it had left faint little smears against the back of the seat.

                He got his hands up under Stan’s arms again and dragged him out across the lawn, inching his way towards the house’s back porch, where he spotted the ratty old sofa that sat there. Fiddleford deposited the unconscious man there upon the musty cushions and paused to catch his breath, back and shoulders aching.

                When Stan showed no signs of waking, he turned his attentions to the house. He heard no movement inside, but knew the kids must be somewhere about. He hesitated there in the deep shadow of the porch, listening to the rain drone on and looking nervously between Stan’s crumpled figure on the sofa and the shadowy woods. He could slip off right now and no one would be the wiser. Judging by the blow Stan had taken to the head, he might not even recall what had happened between them.

                But what point was there, running off into the dark? What was there to go back to? A mud filled shack made of rusty siding and car parts, with no one to talk to but his own warped reflection? That might have been acceptable to the old McGucket, but not to Fiddleford. If he was going to truly start to put himself back together, to reclaim what he had lost, that meant he had to stop running from the things that scared him most.

                Right now, the Shack seemed dark and menacing, looming with shadows that were full of barely repressed memories. Even standing on the porch there as he was stirring up things he’d thought long gone and buried.

                Stan moaned quietly, making him draw his attention back to the present.

                “No more running, Fiddleford.” He reminded himself, squaring his sloping shoulders and puffing out his chest as he reached for the doorknob again. Surprisingly, it came open easily. Stan must have forgotten to unlock it, or he was more trusting than he let on. The latter didn’t seem likely.

                His bare feet made a soft slapping sound on the hard wood floor as he moved through the halls, peering nervously into rooms as he passed. There was no noise in the Shack at all however, except for the faint quiet drone of the television in the den that Stan had forgotten to turn off.

                He’d been to the Mystery Shack before of course, many times. Unlike a lot of the businesses in town, Stan never chased him away and even found a way of “discretely” offering him something to eat and drink, without making it seem like he was offering a hand out. Stan Pines had always been good at that; pretending to be a complete, uncaring ass, when he was actually a decent guy.

                But, where he stood now, at the annex between the kitchen, the staircase, and the door that lead into the gift shop; Fiddleford felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. He’d never been in this part of the house before, yet it was all vaguely familiar.

                _“Fiddleford? How’s it coming?”_

                The man physically jumped, his heart racing and his breath hitched as he turned towards the phantom voice, only to find no one there. Still he was sure he’d heard it, just as clear as a day. He moaned quietly and pulled at the tufted, ragged remains of his ever whitening hair and shivered.

                “Oh dear…oh no…no no no…”

                He felt like he was having what he and his son Tate used to call “episodes”. The memory ray was effective of removing unwanted recollections, yes, but it seemed that the effects were less than completely permanent. Imprints and echoes of the memories remained in his subconscious, resurfacing at certain triggers, appearing like delusions or vivid dreams.

                _“Fiddleford? Is it ready yet?”_

_“Fidds! I need your help! Hurry, quickly--!”_

_“Fiddleford? Fiddleford?”_

The voice echoed and resounded, growing in the emptiness of the dark home, seeming to fill up all the surrounding space around him, until the strange voice reached the deafening din of a on coming freight train in his mind.

                McGucket yelped and held his head, sliding down the wall, quivering in fear. This wasn’t just an “episode” it wasn’t just his mind playing tricks. This was something else, something that sensed his presence in the home, something that clearly didn’t want him here.

                _“I thought I told you not to come back?”_ a new voice said, making him flinch with fear and utter another yelp of terror. He looked around frantically, sweat beading his brow, eyes bulging, searching every corner, every crevice, every nook in the darkness for some source of the sound that tormented him. But there was nothing there, nothing he could see.

                _“You should be ashamed of yourself, walking through that door, after all this time. After the way you abandoned them.”_

“T-t-them?” the old man stuttered, tears in his eyes.

                _“Fidds! Fidds come back!”_ the first voice echoed, sounding frightened, desperate. McGucket still couldn’t place the face it belonged to; it was shadowy and smeared in his mind, though he was slowly connecting that it must have been the Author of the journals, his partner, who was speaking.

                _“Fine! I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone!”_

                “I’m sorry…” McGucket simpered, head in his hands, rocking back and forth upon the floor, knobby knees drawn up to his chest.

                “McGucket?”

                This voice was real, grounded and close to him, and contained none of the haunting echo to it that the other two had. McGucket looked up with a gasp to see that Stan was there before him, leaning on the wall, looking at him with concern.

                For a moment the two men just looked at each other in the dark, with nothing but the faint glow of the kitchen light to illuminate their features. Stan massaged his throbbing face, “Okay, you’re gonna have to clue me in to what your master plan is here; cause I’m at a loss. I mean, you smash my face with a shot gun barrel, but you bring me home? Then you break into my house and now you’re…well, whatever this is.”

                The other man said nothing, just shivered and sobbed quietly, seeming paralyzed by some strange fear.

                Stan pushed himself off the wall and stumbled a little as he moved towards the crouched man, pushing away the dizziness that followed his efforts. “…okay…obviously it’s been kinda a tough night for you. It’s raining cats and dogs out there…and I’m in no shape to take you anywhere. And you sure as FUCK ain’t touching my car again. So why don’t we call a truce for tonight, huh?”

                Fiddleford sniffled and nodded slowly, wiping his face on his sleeves. “I-I-didn’t mean ta hurt ya. It-it-it was a-an a-accident.” The man stammered with a shaking breath.

                Stan nodded and helped him to his feet, though he wasn’t exactly stable himself. “Yeah well, shit happens.”

                He lead the smaller man back down the corridor, casting one quick glance up the stairs to see if there was anyone listening or waiting there, and then ushered him into the spare room, where there was a large futon couch. Fiddleford hesitated for a moment in the doorway, but Stan pressed him on.

                “Come on, you can sleep here tonight. Couch is comfortable enough and I think I’ve got some extra blankets around here somewhere. Bathroom’s down the hall, second door on the right.”

                McGucket edged his way over to the futon and sunk down on it with a vague, lost expression on his face. Stan studied him for a moment, feeling a knot begin to coil in his stomach. “You, uh…you gonna be alright? You want I should call somebody? Like your kid?”

                The other man slowly shook his head. “Naw…don’t trouble him none. He won’t talk ta me no more, anyhow.”

                Stan nodded mutely. “Well…alright then. Let’s agree to sleep this off and settle things in the morning.”

                Again, McGucket said nothing, only nodding in that dazed quiet way that made Stan wonder if he actually understood what was happening. But he didn’t have the energy tonight. He moved back towards the door and closed it behind him, leaving the light on for the old man, then limped his way down the hall and into his own bedroom.

                Turning on one of the lamps near his dresser, he leaned forward, gazing at his battered reflection in the mirror and hissing at the swollen welt that marred his forehead. The cut had been exaggerated by condition, causing the skin to split even further. Stan cringed and sucked in a hissing breath as he tested it with his fingers and felt a sharp throb as result. “Son of a bitch. Are you _kidding me_ , McGucket? How am I supposed to give tours like this?” he muttered.

                There was nothing for it. He dug in his drawers and pulled out a bottle of peroxide, cotton swabs and a towel which he then filled with ice from fridge before returning to the task at hand. He needed to get the swelling down first, then assess whether he needed stitches.

                He frowned at the thought; but he had taken care of worse wounds before. He still had a scar on his thigh from where he’d taken a knife there in a fight. Fifteen stitches, all done by his own hand. It was no wonder there was a scar.

                But there was little time for bemoaning his personal appearance; there were much bigger questions at hand now.

                So Old Man McGucket had worked with Stanford. _That_ was a twist Stan hadn’t counted on. And even more curious than that; he seemed not only to know Stanford, but to know Stan as _Stanley_. This sent up major red flags. No one in Gravity Falls knew him by that name, not a soul. He’d stopped using it after the accident with the portal…

                But he’d been in Gravity Falls a whole month before that happened. And several weeks after that. Which meant that McGucket had to have known him during that short window of time.

                “That doesn’t make any sense,” Stan muttered to himself in the dark as he eased himself out of his muddy clothes and sunk down on his bed, holding the ice filled cloth to his pounding forehead. “It was just me and Stanford that whole time…we never saw a soul, and…I think we might have left the cabin only once or twice.”

                But 30 years is a long time, and things had begun to fade from his mind, despite everything. And then there was the whole matter of this “memory gun” and the secret society that Dipper had spoken of.

                Stan’s head gave a particularly painful throb and he groaned, sinking back against his pillows. He knew he probably shouldn’t go to sleep. He’d been a boxer, way back in the day, and he knew that getting your lights punched out could mean a concussion or worse. If he closed his eyes now, they might not open again tomorrow.

                Part of him didn’t think that would be so bad.

                But the dark little thought was immediately dispelled by thoughts of Dipper and Mable, and the portal, which was at this very moment still continuing its search beneath the Shack. If he kicked off now, those kids would be lost. And he’d never get the satisfaction of proving to Ford that he _could_ do something right. Like bring him back from across space and time….if there was anything to bring back.

                Stan’s throat pinched and closed his eyes. Alright. He wouldn’t sleep. Not until he was sure his head was okay. But if he was going to stay up and be sore and miserable, he was going to have a marathon of dirty movies to keep him company.

 

***


	3. Chapter 3

 

                Normally Mable was the first out of bed; (he swore she was part rooster) but this morning it was Dipper that woke before the sun was quite over the tips of the pines. He rolled out of bed, pulled on his rumpled shorts and made his way towards the door, sparing a quick glance at Mable, who had her back turned to him, still sleeping heavily.

                Dipper frowned, running a hand through his ruffled hair, which was flattened on one side and sticking up at odd angles on the other from sleep. His memory was beginning to click back into place, and he remembered the confrontation with Stan.

                He couldn’t understand why his Uncle was always so eager to tear him down? He thought that maybe things would change after their talk in the attic, when Stan had promised him that there were no more secrets. Then again, perhaps he should have expected Stan to go back on his word. The man made a living off lying after all.

                His mood thoroughly soured and his thoughts shambling forward at a mile a minute, he barely registered that he was not the first person in the kitchen that morning. In fact, he had made it all the way to the fridge before actually turning to see not only his uncle, but a visitor.

                Dipper yelped in spite of himself, being easy to startle to begin with, and fell back into the counter top, causing it to rattle the container of orange juice there, which sloshed across his shoulder and arm as result.

                “What the—McGucket?”

                The smaller white haired man, now huddled in one of Stan’s old thermal shirts (which was infinitely too large for his small malnourished frame), almost flinched at his name. He seemed small, wide-eyed and sheepish, grinning nervously at youth.

                “W-well hello there, Dipper. Fancy seeing you here!” the man grinned at length mustering with his usual cackle, then blinked and scratched his thick beard, shaking his head. “Wait, that ain’t right…” He looked up at Stan, who was standing over his shoulder, pouring coffee into his mug. “Where am I again?”

                “The Mystery Shack, dingus.” Stan huffed with a sigh, as if this was the third or fourth time he’d had to explain it to the man who had taken up residence in Stan’s usual seat.

                “Oh my gosh! Grunkle Stan, your _face_!” Dipper gasped then, getting a good look at Stan now as well and the large black and purple gash that rose across his forehead.

                “Yeah, yeah I know. Can you believe I woke up like this?” the grizzled man chuckled, “A-Ain’t that how you kids say it these days? Ya know? ‘I woke up like this’, when really there is no freaking way anyone rolls outta bed lookin’ that good? Eh, fuck I dunno.”

                The younger Pines twin groped about for a dishtowel to clean up his spill, barely able to take his eyes off the two men in front of him. “Did something happen last night? McGucket, are you okay? Those people from the museum, they didn’t try to come after you again, did they?”

                “People…?” Fiddleford quipped, squinting and then shook his head as if clearing the fog. “Oh no! No no no, nothin’ like that, son. I don’t reckon we need to be worrying about that lot, least not for awhile.”

                He noticed how Dipper’s eyes slid nervously towards Stan, who was easing himself down at one of the other chairs, taking a long slurp from his customary question marked coffee mug. McGucket attempted another reassuring smile, motioning for the boy to move closer. “Now no need to get yer fur up, little fella. Yer Uncle and I have already talked it over, and he’s just worried about you youngens getting in over yer heads. I think it would be hard to argue that after last night.”

                Dippper’s apprehensive expression now turned to an agitated one as he looked more fully at Stan; “Wait…I thought you didn’t believe us?”

                “Never said that.”

                “But you—you--!” Dipper’s face was flushing bright pink, as it had a habit of doing when he was flustered, embarrassed, or angry. He would turn bright pink like grapefruit, all the way up to his ears. It reminded Stan so much of himself as a child that he didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for the kid.

                Dipper slapped his palms on the table and released a loud grunt of frustration. “Why would you do that?! Why would you go to McGucket and not us?! Are you trying to convince him that it didn’t happen, that—“

                “Whoa, whoa, _whoa_ kid, simmer down!” Stan commanded, looking hard at the boy who stood across from him, practically seething with frustration. “You and your sister come in here after hours, talking about secret societies and a cult who kidnaps people and brainwashes them, or whatever. So I wanted to do a little fact checking, that’s all.” He glanced at Fiddleford, who was sitting rigid and awkwardly between the two, clearly unnerved by the tension. “I wanted to make sure that no one was takin’ advantage of you kids, ya know, stringing you along? Believe it or not there are people in this town who would get their kicks doing just that. Not just me.”

                “You thought it was some kind of hoax?”

                Stan took another thoughtful sip of his coffee and looked at McGucket again. “Well…when you brought up McGucket’s name, I couldn’t help but think of that lake monster you were so taken with. Turned out to be a wild goose chase.”

                Fiddleford blushed and chuckled nervously, looking miserably at his own coffee, which remained untouched in front of him. “Eheh…oh yeah. I plum forgot about that little contraption.”

                The boy shook his head; “No, that doesn’t matter. This was real! Tell him, McGucket! Tell him it’s true! That you invented the machine, that whatever you saw when you were working with the Author scared you so bad you wanted to forget—tell him!”

                The white haired man looked anxiously between Dipper and Stan for a moment, fumbling for words, and Stan saw his fingers shaking against his cup as he struggled. The boy was looking at him so desperately, so adamantly, begging to be vindicated.

                But something stopped him; something he couldn’t quite identify. It was almost as though he were afraid of someone else overhearing. Someone who would not like the truth to come out.

                Stan’s big, rough hand suddenly folded over his and squeezed lightly, “That’s enough, Dipper. Go on, scram. Grown ups are talking.”

                Dipper balked, stuttering, looking so flustered that it was all Stan could do to keep from laughing and making it worse. Instead he squared his jaw and nodded his head sternly towards the door. “Beat it, kiddo. Call you when breakfast is ready.”

                “You-you---ARGH!” He finally grabbed his hair in frustration, whirled and stomped out of the kitchen. Stan heard him swearing under his breath as he stormed through the doorway and into the darkened hallway again.

                “ _Yeesh_. These teenagers and their hormones. What a nightmare, am I right?” he grunted, looking back at McGucket, who looked pale and lost.

                “Look…Fiddleford. It is Fiddleford, ain’t it? What a fuckin’ name….” he fumbled, “I’m gonna be square with you, my friend. You’ve got something that busted up there in the old melon, you know what I’m saying? I feel for ya, my friend, I really do. The way that kid of yours treats ya…it ain’t right. What kind of man just up and abandons his family like that huh? Ingrates, I tell ya…” he trailed off for a moment, then cleared his throat. “But the kid’s right, ain’t he? You know stuff about this town, it’s secrets.”

                The homeless man looked at him nervously and nodded; “Well sure I do. I know lots of things; after all, I come and go around here as I please and no one pays me any mind. No one thinks the old loon who carries around raccoons is gonna ease drop on their conversations…no one thinks ol’ Fiddleford McGucket knows the difference between his ass and whole in the ground.” There was a bitterness in his tone, but also a sort of subversive slyness that resonated with Stan. It was no secret that Old Man McGucket had the occasional “vengeful” outburst when he felt slighted by someone. He still remembered the day that weird robot had stormed through the downtown area, chugging like a steam engine and burping fire.

                Stan nodded. “What is it you know about the Author of that journal my boy carries around?” he asked, his voice quieter, more serious than usual. He studied the man’s pale and lined face, looking for a tell.

                McGucket looked at him with those wide, glassy blue eyes, staring at Stan with a strange almost haunted expression. “I…I know that I worked with him, once. But you have to understand…it’s all gotten so twisted around up there. Dipper seemed to think that _I_ was the Author.”

                Stan frowned, “Well, we both know that ain’t true.”

                It was his guests turn to blink at him. “Wait…did _you_ know the Author too?”

                Stan tensed and rose from his seat, reaching across the table and slapping a hand across McGucket’s mouth before looking worriedly towards the doorway. Out in the hall, he could hear the faint din of the television in the den, which was turned up too loud. Dipper was “angry watching” one of his shows that Stan hated.

                Slowly the former boxer eased his hand off and looked at McGucket more seriously. “I didn’t say that. You never heard me say that. Don’t _ever_ …” he sighed nervously and sat down again. “Look…it’s complicated. If you remember anything at all about the Author, then you know the stuff he was working on was _dangerous_. Too dangerous for these kids to get tangled up in.”

                Fiddleford nodded slowly in agreement.

                “All I’m trying to do is protect them. That’s the one job I got. Keep those two little ankle biters safe and well…hopefully _happy_ until the end of the summer when I ship them back to their parents.”

                “Right. Of course.” Fiddleford stood up then, knees knocking together for a moment as he struggled for balance. “I won’t tell them no more about it, Stan. I promise. Wouldn’t want anyone else to suffer the fate I did…”

                He started towards the door, but Stan called after him. “Sit down, McGucket.”

                “Huh?” the smaller man asked, looking over his shoulder at the broader man who was perched in his chair, bathrobe dangling from his broad shoulders, thick curls of chest hair peeking out above his worn undershirt.

                “What’s yer hurry? Eager to get back to that squatters nest in the dump? Must be full of mud, damn near collapsed in on itself at that storm last night.” He nudged McGucket’s cup towards him, once he refilled it with fresh coffee and poured cream and sugar into it. “I got a spare room here that ain’t being used, least a night. Yer welcome to it, I guess.”

                “You…you want me to stay here?”

                “Sure,” Stan shrugged, “I mean, I could always use more hands around the Shack and you don’t look like you have anything better to do.”

                They looked at each other for a long moment, each sizing the other up. For all of Fiddleford’s outward frailty and his mental instability, Stan sensed that under the veil of trauma that had made him this way was a brilliant, cunning little mind. It must have been, if Ford had wanted anything to do with him.

                “And what do you get out of it?” the white haired man asked finally, folding his arms across his sunken chest and frowning at Stan thoughtfully.

                Stan finally got up and handed Fiddleford his coffee cup. “Maybe I got a few questions I’d like answered too.”

                McGucket nodded at length and took a sip of coffee at last and then smiled pleasantly, blinking into the cup as Stan moved away from him and over to the stove, rounding up a skillet and spatula. Somehow, the old con man knew _exactly_ how he liked his coffee.

 

***


	4. Chapter 4

 

***

               

                The rain staved off business. People were less enthusiastic about buying useless knick-knacks when they were in an unfamiliar place during a storm. Normally this would have Stan pacing and muttering, or outside frantically trying to draw in business with some kind of insane sale gimmick. But not today. Today he couldn’t focus.

                It wasn’t just the lingering headache either (he was already four aspirin tablets in by noon, and washing that down with watered down beer from the fridge), his mind kept going back to McGucket. Presently, the former squatter was asleep on his couch, curled up in a huddled ball. Mable had made sure he had plenty of blankets, despite the humidity, and something soft to cuddle. She remarked to him that Fiddleford’s expression had eased when she slipped one of her stuffed animals under the crook of his sleeping arm.

                All the man’s strange, erratic behavior that the town so willing ignored, or mocked, suddenly started to make a lot more sense to Stan. Standing at the cash register, he frowned against his palm and gazed across the empty shop with glazed eyes and knitted brows. Soos was restocking items on a shelf, humming to himself, but Stan had tuned him out, lost in his own thoughts.

                “Soos,” the old man grunted then quietly, startling his employee, who looked up at him in surprise.

                “Oh, dude! Mr. Pines! I thought you, like, fell asleep. You seemed to be really in the zone, ya know?”

                “Yeah, guess I’m a little out of it today,” Stan nodded, moving stiffly from behind the counter and heading towards the door that separated the gift shop from the rest of the house. “Do me a favor would ya? Keep an eye on the place. I’m gonna go uh…crunch some numbers or somethin’.”

                “Huh?” Soos asked, not quite catching the last part, as Stan had mostly mumbled the words in distraction as he made towards the door.

                “I said I’m gonna go take a nap!” he snapped back, ducking through the door and closing it quickly behind him. He was immediately greeted by giggles. Girly giggles. Candy and Grenda. Mable’s little entourage was visiting again, draining him a soda, chips and glue sticks and leaving strange trails of glitter everywhere.

                He rolled his eyes, but ignored it. At least this meant that she was preoccupied and that Dipper had probably fled the Shack to escape the pre-teen estrogen fest, leaving him and their visitor in relative peace. Stan peeked on the man as he slept, as if just to be sure he wasn’t up to trouble. But McGucket was exactly where he had left him earlier, quietly snoring and muttering in his sleep, still huddled up to that unicorn doll.

                Stan ducked into his room and locked the door behind him before making his way over to his rumpled bed, and pulling an item that was tucked under the worn mattress. He’d already given Dipper back the journal, but he had his own copy now. He’d been reading it religiously each night, once the house was still, going over and over the pages until the words and pictures would begin to blur from tiredness.

                This was the last one, the key to it all. Ford’s life in Gravity Falls, all condensed there in three volumes. Whenever Stan read through the passages, he could he hear his brother’s voice in his mind, almost as clearly as if he were standing there right next to him. Somedays, it hurt too much to read them. Thirty years had gone by, but time had not dimmed that voice from his memory.

                He flipped through the old yellowed pages now, eyes roving over the smudges of ink, the hastily scrawled notes, the detailed drawings that were so painstakingly crafted. Ford was a real artist when he thought about it. Too bad he hadn’t gone in that direction.

                Eventually, Stan’s thick calloused fingers found the page he was searching for. It was a short entry, containing a large drawing of an Egyptian Eye that was subsequently crossed off with a large red x and labeled “Society of the Blind Eye” along side a note that read “what does it mean?”

                Clearly, not even his brother was really sure about this so-called secret society. If McGucket had started the whole thing, using the memory gun on himself to make him forget…was _this_ how he had come to be involved with Stanford?

                Stan now felt a nervous pinch in his stomach and quickly closed the book, hastily shoving it under his pillow. He’d been so preoccupied with the idea that McGucket had known Ford in the first place, that he hadn’t thought to question whether or not they were on good terms with each other. Perhaps they had been enemies, McGucket seeking to erase the evidence of the town’s weird nature just as earnestly as Ford was trying to uncover it? It certainly would have explained his brother’s deep sense of paranoia.

                He glanced towards the bedroom door, still feeling tension in his shoulders, his fingers itches, toes tapping on the floor. In his own paranoia, he felt an urge to go roust Fiddleford from his nap and send him packing.

                But that wouldn’t do him any good. It wouldn’t answer any questions and it certainly wouldn’t win him any friends, throwing the poor guy back out on the street to fend for himself.

                So with a “humph” of breath he flopped down into his pillows and forced himself to close his eyes, setting his glasses on the nightstand. He thought back to those days; the first tumultuous hours when he and Ford had been reunited in the Shack. How Stanley had come, thinking that Ford would be his salvation. He had no idea at the time that Ford had very much been thinking the same thing. Must be one of those weird twin things…

 

**

                The cabin was really in the middle of nowhere. Stanley thought he had seen all the “no where” there was to find in states, and parts of Mexico and South America, but _this_ was on another level. He’d had a hell of time even finding the small speed bump of a town called “Gravity Falls”, but now that he was here he realized how little the town was in comparison to the vastness of the wilderness that it shared space with.

                Ford’s cabin was on the edge of this nowhere, nestled far back between the towering pines. The El Diablo had run out of gas about two miles back, and Stan chose pull her off the road and go it on foot the rest of the way. The tires were thread bare anyway, and even on clean highway she had handled roughly. He shuddered to think what it would be like trying to drive the old girl down the vaguely marked dirt path, which was now covered in at least two feet of snow.

                Luckily, sheltered by the tall, heavy conifers, the wind was not quite so biting, and the snow fell a bit more softly since it was filtered by the high branches above him. His feet were tired and numb, his socks already soaked through from the snow. But he kept telling himself just a little further, just a little longer. _Come on Stan, you’ve made it through worse scrapes than this! Loads of ‘em. A little frost bite…exhaustion…couple of days without a decent meal…isn’t going to stop you now. Not when you’re this close._

                The snow was so deep here that it was up well past his knees, and his jeans were steadily becoming soaked, the cold snow causing his legs to burn and more and more of the slush to slither down into the little gap in his boots.

                It was becoming a chore to move, and his thighs ached miserably every time he trudged forward, practically lunging through the snow drifts. But the could see the cabin now; a large muted brown blur among the flying snowflakes.

                Stan grinned to himself, feeling his chapped lips crack and split as a result, but he didn’t care. He surged forward, knowing he was almost there. Once he reached the front porch, he realized the drifts were high enough here to allow him to simply step onto it with minimal effort, rather than climbing the short set of steps.

                He tumbled under the high eve of the roof, grateful for the small bit of shelter it provided and stood there for a moment, trying to catch his breath and steady himself. The air was frigid and damp, breathing in the snowflakes made his lung ache and burn and he felt mildly dizzy. It didn’t help the fact that the twenty minute trek from the road to the house and left him shivering so violently that he could barely keep hold of his duffle bag.

                But above all this a new thrill of nerves had struck him, making his gloved hand hesitated on the doorknob. It had been ten long, awful years since had spoken to his brother. What would he even say to him?

                _Hey Sixer, it’s me, that dead beat brother of yours. What have I been up to? Oh not much, not much…been to prison a couple of times…spent a lot of time traveling the country…sleeping on doorsteps. Stealing. Swindling. Earning a dollar the hardest, bloodiest way. Hey…how’d school turn out?_

Stan almost turned back. For that moment, even the obvious likelihood that he would freeze to death before even getting out of town seemed like a more viable option than actually facing the family that had abandoned him all those years ago. But he reminded himself that Stanford had sent him the postcard. That must mean he _wanted_ to see him. It wasn’t like he had just shown up on his doorstep, looking for a handout.

                He steadied himself as best he could and knocked, the loud sound almost being muffled out by the wind.

                A second later, the door jerked open, and Stan found himself looking down the business end of a _crossbow_ , which was aimed right at his chest. The man on the other end of the weapon was partially obscured in shadow, but Stan could see the whites of his eyes behind his glasses.

                “ _HAVE YOU COME TO STEAL MY EYES?!”_ The man, whose voice was cracked and edged with hysteria, demanded, looking Stanley up and down.

                The man on the other side of the door stood blinking in shock for a moment. The situation was so abrupt and absurd that for a moment he was not entirely sure it was actually happening. Then he leaned a little closer, ignoring the way the arrowhead quivered in result. “Well, I know I can always count on _you_ for a warm welcome.” He grumbled.

                It seemed to take a second for his words to register, but slowly Stanford put down his weapon, stepping a little further out of the shadow. “S-Stanely? Stan is that you?”

                “Well who were ya expecting, ya jerk? Big Foot?” he chuckled, though it all came about a bit jumbled and broken through his shivers.

                Ford lowered the weapon fully and reached out, catching a handful of Stan’s jacket and tugging him in through the doorway, quickly closing the door against the howling wind and latching several locks upon it.   

                The interior of the cabin was somewhat dark and gloomy, not to mentioned cluttered. There were heaps of papers, books, and boxes upon boxes stacked within the foyer. It was almost as if Stanford had just moved into the place, though Stan thought that unlikely, considering he had gotten the postcard almost a week ago.

                “Are you alone?” Ford asked.

                “W-what?” Stan stuttered, struggling to get his soaking boots off, as he was trudging snow everywhere. His soaking wet socks thudded against the hardwood floor and he stifled a little moan at the way they ached and burned. “Course I am…who’d wanna come all the way out here with me?” he scoffed.

                He felt Ford’s fingers on his shoulder than, turning him towards him. Stan nearly lost his balance in the act, but the grip the man had on his arm was almost painful. He was about to protest this when his brother then blinded him with a small flashlight, pointing the beam straight into his eyes.

                “Ah!! Dammit man, what’re ya doin’?!” Stan moaned, wincing away from it. “Yer blindin’ me!”

                Another pause, then Ford relinquished, putting the flashlight away. “It-it _is_ you. Oh Stan, I’m sorry…I had to be sure.” The tension in his twin’s voice eased a bit then, “I wasn’t sure you would come. I wasn’t even sure you would get my message. You’re a hard man to pin down.” He attempted a small smile.

                “I have to be,” Stan muttered under his breath, but Ford heard anyway, raising an eyebrow in concern. “Stan, you look…awful.”

                Stan frowned again, rubbing his arms wildly to try to warm himself. The cabin was warmer than outside of course, but only marginally it seemed. Or maybe he just couldn’t get warm anymore. He couldn’t remember really being _warm_ anywhere, not since he had fled north up to Oregon. After almost bleeding out in the trunk of a car in Mexico…well, he supposed that had screwed him up inside in more ways than one.

                “You ain’t exactly poster material yerself,” he quipped, looking a little closer at his twin now. Ford’s face was pale, almost waxy in its complexion, like he hadn’t seen the sun in ages. His chin was bristled, sloppily shaven and his eyes were red and blood shot, heavy bags beneath them. His hair was unbrushed, sticking up in wild little cow-licks here and there. Their hair had always had a mind of its own, unruly and thick. Ford was wearing a long trench coat over his sweater, but even under the layers Stan could tell his brother was a bit too thin. There were hollows in his cheeks that had never been there before.

                “What happened to you?”

                They both found the same question escaping their lips at the same time, and both visibly cringed. If anyone else had been around they would have turned away from each other, embarrassed at their occasional symmetry.

                This time, however, they simply gave each other a world weary little chuckle.

                “It’s a long story.” Stanford replied. He glanced down at Stan’s soaked clothes and the way that he was still visibly shivering and seemed shake himself out of the fog, putting an arm around his brother in a much more gentle fashion this time. “Come on, let’s get you out of those. I think the shower still works, you can take a hot one and warm up.”

                “You think?” his twin quipped.

                “The pipes freeze from time to time. Winters are hard up here.”

                “No shit.”

                Ford lead him deeper into the dark confines of the house. Stanley began to slowly recognize the “organized chaos” that his brother frequently lived in, as well as some slightly more homey touches to the house which made it seem slightly less intimidating. He heard a tinkering or clinking noise somewhere off the main foyer, and thought he heard the sound humming, but couldn’t be sure. Now that he was starting to let his guard down, the edges of the word seemed to be smudging a bit in his tiredness. Everything was a little less sharp, a little less defined. His eyes were getting to tired to see all the details.

                His legs were still burning when Ford lead him upstairs to a loft, where there seemed to be one large bedroom, a window seat within the large open foyer and a small bathroom. “You can take my bed for the night, I barely used it anyway. I think I have some clothes that might fit you…”

                Ford’s voice was drifting and Stan felt like he was suddenly walking through quicksand. He let most of his weight sag against Ford suddenly, and his twin struggled to keep from being knocked over, bracing Stan across the back.

                “Stan!? Stan!”

                “Sorry sixer…”

                Ford lowered him to the floor with him, the two sitting in a heap on the old braided rug, under the lone swinging light above their heads that bathed them both in pale yellow light. Ford struggled to gather Stan close, feeling his pulse and peering once more into his eyes, prying the lids open. “Stanley!”

                “...it’s okay…I’m ok…just gotta take a little break.” Stan mumbled, his brother having to lean close to decipher the words.

                Ford nodded, though he felt a pinch of helplessness in his guts that made him bite his lip nervously as he cast his gaze towards the window seat and the odd picture window above it. He wrapped his arms closer around Stan, almost protectively and pushed his face into the man’s damp, frozen hair.

                “I didn’t think you’d come…now that you’re here…I hope I haven’t made another mistake.” Ford muttered above him, feeling tears sting his already red-rimmed eyes.

 

***


End file.
